Maybe the slippery slope argument is not really a fallacy but has some merit when it comes to social change at the hand of nannies.
Now that smoking (analogs) and the social restrictions placed upon them is more-or-less a done deal in all of the Western world, it would seem that the nannies are now turning towards alcohol.
[Aside: Interestingly this is the opposite of what happened during the prohibition era where alcohol was banned first and then those supporting that ban turned immediately towards tobacco but didn't ultimately succeed with either as it turned out.]
Today all over the news here in the UK is:
The item in bold is what interested me mostly because I happened to be reading a number of articles on the WHO website recently which implied that alcohol consumption in the UK was actually going down and not up.
I did some digging on the government's statistics website and eventually ended up at the NHS (National Health Service) website whereupon I found some actual numbers. Charting those numbers gives the following and shows that indeed consumption has been falling. (I was only able to get numbers up to the end of 2007 but I think it's safe to say that the tend is down.)
So it looks like alcohol is now the new target and is likely to be subjected to the same barrage of dubious press releases from lobby groups who seem unable to count and would prefer to play the media with press releases on the assumption that their statements won't actually be checked for accuracy.
Also, I happened to notice that drinking outside the home had been declining at an average rate of 5% per year up until the year of the smoking ban in England (2007) whereupon it dropped 10% that year and the ban didn't even take effect until July. Might be a coincidence I suppose...
Now that smoking (analogs) and the social restrictions placed upon them is more-or-less a done deal in all of the Western world, it would seem that the nannies are now turning towards alcohol.
[Aside: Interestingly this is the opposite of what happened during the prohibition era where alcohol was banned first and then those supporting that ban turned immediately towards tobacco but didn't ultimately succeed with either as it turned out.]
Today all over the news here in the UK is:
yahoo said:
The item in bold is what interested me mostly because I happened to be reading a number of articles on the WHO website recently which implied that alcohol consumption in the UK was actually going down and not up.
I did some digging on the government's statistics website and eventually ended up at the NHS (National Health Service) website whereupon I found some actual numbers. Charting those numbers gives the following and shows that indeed consumption has been falling. (I was only able to get numbers up to the end of 2007 but I think it's safe to say that the tend is down.)
So it looks like alcohol is now the new target and is likely to be subjected to the same barrage of dubious press releases from lobby groups who seem unable to count and would prefer to play the media with press releases on the assumption that their statements won't actually be checked for accuracy.
Also, I happened to notice that drinking outside the home had been declining at an average rate of 5% per year up until the year of the smoking ban in England (2007) whereupon it dropped 10% that year and the ban didn't even take effect until July. Might be a coincidence I suppose...
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